Flu drugs may harm drinking water

Research has found that existing plans for antiviral and antibiotic use during a severe influenza pandemic could reduce wastewater treatment efficiency.

H1N1 flu vaccine

This would result in the water quality deteriorating at drinking water abstraction points.

The research by a team including the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology is published today in the journal Health Perspectives.

The team investigated the potential impact of the medical response to an influenza pandemic on wastewater treatment plants and rivers.

They concluded that a mild pandemic would have negligible ecotoxicologic hazards but a moderate to severe outbreak would cause the potential contamination at drinking water abstraction points.

Centre for Ecology & Hydrology lead author, Dr Andrew Singer, said: "Our results suggest that existing plans for drug use during an influenza pandemic could result in discharge of inefficiently treated wastewater into the UK's rivers.

"The potential widespread release of antivirals and antibiotics into the environment may hasten the development of resistant pathogens with implications for human health during and potentially well after the formal end of the pandemic."

The Centre said while more research needed to be done, the production and successful distribution of pre-pandemic and pandemic influenza vaccines could help to alleviate all of the identified environmental and human health problems in the research. Alison Brown